Disney's ZOOTOPIA is now playing in theaters! To learn more about Zootopia City and it's inhabits, I attended a special "Behind the Scenes" event with Darrin Butters, a Walt Disney Animation Studios’ Animator!

Note: I was invited as media to this event. Any personal views expressed are always 100% my own.

During the event Darrin shared exclusive clips and behind the scenes info on ZOOTOPIA, followed by a Q&A session.

During the event, I learned that The Disney Animation Studios team spent lots of time studying various animals at different wildlife parks and zoos to figure out facial and body movements that closely match the animals.

For fox Nick Wilde (voice of Jason Bateman) they studied how a real foxes mouth opens and how his body would move, tail and all.

For Officer Judy Hopps (voice of Ginnifer Goodwin), they studies how rabbits moves their ears, noses and heads when scared, etc

They also did research with a real life female police officer. They wanted to understand the issues a female officer would face and made sure they were portrayed those issues as realistic and respectful manner.

During the Q&A session Darrin answered lots of questions about his background, life as an animator and his work on the Disney films including ZOOTOPIA.

My son was excited to meet the guy who drew some of the Disney movie characters he enjoyed so much. Meanwhile I was excited to learn more about the sloths scene. LOL

Darrin shared

...the scene actually took a lot of work to animate. Sloths naturally are not "animated" creatures so we really had to think of ways to speed up their movements. And when it came to the "laugh" I was encouraged to go as over board as possible. Really make that sloth laugh with the wide eyes, large smile, etc.

If you've seen the sloth scene in the trailer, then you know he did an amazing job!

We also learned how animators come up with an idea and story board a scene. From the city climates for the connecting cities to the background characters, clothing, building, etc everything is examined and planned for.

It was a real treat to hear from Darrin since he's been an animator on many of Disney’s top films including TANGLED, WRECK IT RALPH and FROZEN.

Hopefully you have or are planning to take your family to see ZOOTOPIA. Trust me that you'll be amazed by both the storyline and the animation of the Zootopia City characters.

SYNOPSIS:

The modern mammal metropolis of Zootopia is a city like no other. Comprised of habitat neighborhoods like ritzy Sahara Square and frigid Tundratown, it’s a melting pot where animals from every environment live together—a place where no matter what you are, from the biggest elephant to the smallest shrew, you can be anything.

But when rookie Officer Judy Hopps (voice of Ginnifer Goodwin) arrives, she discovers that being the first bunny on a police force of big, tough animals isn’t so easy. Determined to prove herself, she jumps at the opportunity to crack a case, even if it means partnering with a fast-talking, scam-artist fox, Nick Wilde (voice of Jason Bateman), to solve the mystery.